Posts tagged Facebook
Facebook launching new broadcast feature - is it just one big ad though?
Aug 16th
Facebook is launching a new live video channel called Facebook Live that will allow the social network to dip its toes in the world of broadcasting.
Facebook Live will provide a deeper, more interactive look into what’s happening at Facebook.
The video is powered by Livestream. The video player itself comes with options to share on Facebook or Twitter, as well as an embed option.
Users will be able submit questions to those featured in videos, which can also be used by celebrities to connect with audiences. America Ferrera and Wilmer Valderrama have already used the video feature last week to engage with viewers. There is also a chat option.
It appears that while there isn’t a live event going on, the channel just shows past broadcasts, while providing the following message scrolling across the bottom: “Facebook Live is currently off-air, but please feel free to explore our archived videos! Our most recent episode will be available shortly.”
It will be very interesting to see what kind of guests stop by the Facebook HQ to do interview and Q&As. It could be a great tool for celebrities in terms of PR, but getting the celebs involved cold prove difficult.
All of the content featured on Facebook Live will tie back to Facebook products, features or how people are using Facebook.
This could be a pretty useful feature for the site, so long as it doesn’t end up being one big ad for the site with a celeb face.
Facebook is becoming the biggest advertising platform in the world
Aug 10th
Facebook is the second most visited website in the UK, accounting for 7.14% of all internet visits in July, according to Experian Hitwise.
Facebook is a never ending story of growth, with no sign of slowing. Well, no real fool-proof sign, anyway.
The social networking king also accounts for over half (54.48%) of all visits to social sites.
In terms of total visits, Facebook continues to trail Google UK, and recorded a 9.59% market share in July. However, using the measure of total page views rather than visits, Facebook is way ahead.
As the table below illustrates, the social network accounted for 16.73% of UK page views during July. In other words: last month, 1 in every 6 Internet pages viewed in the UK was a Facebook page.
There are 26 million British users already and Facebook’s market share of UK page views has trebled over the last five years. However, growth has slowed significantly over the past six months having grown around 1.7% since November last year, compared to a sizeable 5% growth between April and October last year.
As Facebook continues to grow around the world (last month it reached more than 500 million registered users, some are beginning to wonder when the site will reach saturation point.
Recent government statistics put the amount of adults online as 37.4 million, so the site still has a few more people to entice in with the thrills of Farmville. But it must also find a way to entice users to spend long amounts of time on the site if it wants to entice more advertisers.
The average session time on the site has leveled out to around 27.36 minutes in June/July, down from a seasonal peak of 30 minutes in December, says Experian Hitwise. This is still a good deal better than most other sites out there.
And there’s no doubt that big brand advertisers are getting on board. Facebook revenues are tipped to double to $1.4 billion (£885m) in 2010 as advertising fees continue to surge.
According to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, the biggest advertisers increased spending by as much as 20-fold in the past year. In an interview with Bloomberg she said: “Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us. Now, they’re going big.”
Facebook is also improving its infrastructure to give more space and time to display advertisements and increasing user personal engagement with brands through social gaming and other features.
Facebook marketing has been used to improve reach for online clothing retailers, revive Buick Motor’s youthful spirit, inspire the electric car market, boost revenue for Old Spice and increase pizza delivery orders at Dominos Pizza.
Things won’t slow down either, as Facebook eyes expansion in developing BRIC countries that could double that ‘500 million’ figure.
There’s no denying that Facebook is on its way to being the biggest advertising platform in history…
Switching on to social media’s new challenges
Jul 26th
Simon Robinson, marketing and alliances director, EMEA, Responsys, explains the challenge that the astronomical growth of social media sites poses to marketers.
Last week, Facebook reached its much sought after milestone of reaching 500 million users – that represents 8% of the world’s entire population.
There is no denying the impact that social media tools are having on the way in which we communicate, both at a business and a personal level. From micro-blogging sites such as Twitter to professional networks like LinkedIn and of course, the force that is Facebook, social media is now as big a part of our daily lives as drinking a cup of coffee or taking the tube to work.
For marketers, this presents an interesting challenge but also one that cannot be ignored. The trick lies in finding the most effective way of communicating with your target audience. However, this is complicated by the fact that consumers now expect to find relevant information not just in their inbox or on a web site, but in whatever channel they decide to use, whenever they feel like using it.
Against this backdrop, the businesses that succeed will be those that can switch on to social media in the same way they have embraced more traditional approaches to marketing such as direct mail and email marketing. They must also appreciate that all consumers are different and social media has helped to harness and grow this individuality, it is here that the secret to success lies. Savvy marketers can take this knowledge and use it to power more personalised and targeted communications.
Now is the time to for marketing teams to evaluate how they can integrate social media into their marketing campaigns in order to drive engagement and ultimately business profit.
Facebook’s new ad format might just work
Jul 9th
Facebook is pitching its latest series of ad formats to big name advertisers such as Ford Motor and PepsiCo, but it needs you and your friends, too.
The latest ad format that the social network has come up with is a platform that tells users which of their Facebook friends have expressed interest in a brand or product featured in an ad.
The social-context ads, which Facebook actually started rolling out over a year ago, are based on data it collects on the likes and friends of its users.
The ads appear on the right side of a user’s homepage, with an image and headline from the advertiser.
Alongside the ads are the names of any of the user’s friends who have clicked on a button indicating they like the brand or ad. The user is also offered a chance to indicate he likes the ad via the ‘Like’ button.
Facebook says it is starting to see results with major marketers, such as a recent deal with Nike to buy ads on users’ homepages across 20 countries. The ads are reportedly selling for around US$100,000.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, told the Wall Street Journal that, “Marketers have always known that the best way to sell something is to get your friends to sell it. That is what people do all day on Facebook. We enable effective word-of-mouth advertising at scale for the first time.”
As part of its bid for a bigger slice of the online-advertising pie, Facebook opened four international sales offices last year and another one this year in Hamburg, Germany – doubling its ad-sales staff since 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook to make appeal to advertisers for money
Jun 21st
It’s been a bad year for social networking giant Facebook, but perhaps things are about to change as CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to make a rare on-stage appearance.
Zuckerberg will face the world’s advertising community this week as the social network strives to generate revenues that and take advantage of the sites 500 million-plus user base.
The media-shy CEO will receive the ‘media person of the year’ award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival on Wednesday, following an interview in front of its audience of agency bosses and marketing chiefs.
This year’s Cannes Lions, historically a bit of a booze up for ad execs and creatives, will see more representatives than ever from the companies that pay ad agencies’ fees.
Chief marketers from Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Kraft and Coca-Cola, some of the world’s largest advertisers, will all present seminars at the event, in a sign of the shifting balance of power in ad land.
But agencies and their clients alike are desperate to better understand the world of social media, which is where Zuckerberg will make himself known as the resident expert.
Zuckerberg’s attendance signals his determination to woo the big consumer brands that have historically been wary of advertising online.
But will it work?
Advertisers have long been wary of the fickle nature of social netoworks and their even more so audience.
Just two years after beginning to monetise its audience in earnest, Facebook’s revenue per user is already half the level of that achieved by portals such as MSN and Yahoo, says the Financial Times.
But relative to the many hours most users spend on Facebook each month, its income is “way behind” that of those more established sites.
Perhaps it’ll go down a little easier with a few tumbler’s of whiskey.
Advertisers will always turn to Facebook – despite all that privacy stuff
Jun 3rd
Facebook, despite its constant battle with users over privacy controls, has seen its advertisers more than quadruple since the start of 2009 as marketers aim to get their products before a growing global audience.
Growing you ask? As it turns out, Quit Facebook day on Monday failed to gain momentum as ComScore revealed the social networking site now boasts 519.1 million users worldwide.
The user growth presents a big enticement for advertisers.
Better news for Facebook is companies are boosting ad spending after a lull during the recession.
Facebook ran 176 billion display ads in the US alone in the first quarter, up from 70.7 billion a year earlier, according to ComScore.
In a bid to reach consumers who spend long stretches on the internet, advertisers are using Facebook as a means of targeted the right consumer demographic.
Ads are showing up next to profile pages, based on a user’s information such as gender and birth date.
Facebook sells ads that are placed on the home pages of users, where the latest comments, pictures and links from their friends are posted.
Among the worldwide advertisers are Procter & Gamble, Toys ‘R’ Us, Adidas and Virgin. The social networking site (which has always struggled to make a profit and monetize since its public launch in 2006) is relying on ads to maintain sales growth and lay the groundwork for a possible initial public offering.
The site’s growth is a constant threat to rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft as it has last month emerged as the largest site for display ads, with a market share of 16%, rising from 11% in the fourth quarter.
Yahoo! has a 12% share, down from 13% in the previous period, Microsoft had 5.5%.
Facebook also became the most visited website in March, overtaking longtime leader Google for the first time, according to Experian Hitwise.
Even as companies ramp up spending, privacy challenges threaten to curb advertiser interest if it leads to a slowdown in Facebook’s user growth.
Companies should keep a close eye on user growth numbers in coming months as users begin to hide some personal information used by advertisers to target them.
So, you want to quit Facebook?
May 31st
Following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement at F8 that he would be changing the privacy controls on Facebook, 25,418 users signed up to stage a protest today and quit. But will they actually pull the plug?
QuitFacebook.com says that user should quit for two reasons:
1) Fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn’t do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren’t fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don’t think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.
2) For a lot of people, quitting Facebook revolves around privacy. This is a legitimate concern, but we also think the privacy issue is just the symptom of a larger set of issues. The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place. We just can’t see Facebook’s current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we’re leaving.
With a user base that is approaching 500 million worldwide, 25,418 is a very small amount that seem so concerned (in percentage terms its 0.006%).
And why should more be, Zuckerberg has done a back flip on the controls and promised to make them more simple.
In a Washington Post editorial, he claimed it was never Facebook’s intent to be seen as an entity which deliberately collected and shared personal information to be sold.
Whether that’s enough to limit any damage done to the site by movements such as Quit Facebook Day will be anyone’s guess, as Facebook doesn’t include deactivated accounts when it comes to its “how many million users” milestone announcements.
It’s possible, of course, that the number of Facebook quitters will rise dramatically today, but the lack of interest thus far is a telling indication of the average Facebooker’s indifference to the ongoing privacy debate.
Furthermore, Google has released web traffic data over the weekend that indicate Facebook is king when it comes to online visitors.
Facebook.com is visited monthly by 540 million people, or slightly more than 35% of the internet population, according to Google Ad Planner worldwide data gathered using recently-acquired Double Click.
Approximately 570 billion pages are viewed monthly at Facebook.com, more than eight times as many pages as are viewed each month at second-place Yahoo.com, which gets 490 million visitors, according to Google.
This is Mark Zuckerberg, I’m listening
May 25th
Facebook is the very tool that has allowed marketers, brands, CEOs, managers etc to talk and listen organically to customers…so shouldn’t it be listening too? And reacting sooner rather than later.
Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take on the views of his users yesterday was well received, but it is one in a long string of changes and re-changes by the young CEO. But has it really damaged the social network…or perhaps made it more popular?
Let’s face it, Facebook’s numbers have only ever grown, despite a number of gaffes.
Since its start, Facebook has be broiled in many a privacy debate, many an investigation and many a backlash. But it’s always stood up for itself…not apologised, stood up.
Think of Facebook as a country (after all, Zuckerberg regularly reminds us that Facebook’s user base is actually bigger than the population of the US). Zuckerberg is the Prime Minister…or the President.
Not everything he does is well received, and being a democracy (as it seems to be, freedom of speech and all that) civilians are allowed to voice their concern, protest and revolt.
With that many users, like a country with vast amounts of people, there are always bound to be some that aren’t going to be catered for the way they should. But the government, and Zuckerberg, can never please everyone. Why? Then we’d have world peace and secretly no body actually wants that. We love to revel in chaos and calamity, it what makes life interesting and why shows like Neighbours remain popular across several continents for decades.
There doesn’t seem to be a week go by when Facebook and its fearless (sometime naïve) leader are not making headlines. Maybe Facebook wants it that way…perhaps they’re using PR tactics similar to that of Apple…stealth tactic, marketing to us, encouraging us and we don’t even know that they’re mostly not just the catalyst.
In Facebook listening to its users’ concerns over privacy and then acting upon it, it is sending out the message similar to what Frasier Krane “we’re listening”.
And perhaps that was the intent all along…to restore consumer confidence as a government would. Create a problem in the public eye, fix it, win confidence. It’s an easy formula…perhaps a little cynical of me but you can ignore the fact that it’s slightly usually for a company that is yet to make a profit give up the chance to please its consumers. Can you think of any government or corporate who’d do the same?
There’s more to this story than meets the eye and sooner or later, it’ll be in the headlines again.
Nike takes on Adidas with Facebook film starring Ronaldo
May 21st
As Facebook grapples with staff over privacy concerns and deals with users boycotting the site, it still has managed to remind us of its power over advertisers.
Everyone wants to be on Facebook, everyone in the marketing world that is. If you’re not on Facebook, you’re out of touch. And after all, there are over 500 million people there.
This strength has been proven by Nike’s decision to exclusively launch its new World Cup advertising campaign.
The campaign kicks off today with a 10 minutes film on Facebook featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney. You can see it here.
The video is only viewable to Facebook users and can only be viewed after the viewer has clicked on the ‘Like’ button.
The film includes a three-minute advertisement, called “Write the Future,” and intersperses on-field action with reactions from viewers all over the world.
In June, Nike also plans to roll out an Elf Yourself-type online experience that lets consumers generate ripple videos and visuals from their own photos.
Since Nike is vying with Adidas for supremacy in the Football category, both view the World Cup as a major battle and perhaps social media is the perfect field in which to play it on.
Does Facebook doom mean gloom for advertisers?
May 19th
It’s all going terribly wrong for Facebook this month. Not only is the social network having to deal with a user backlash, now the site is having to deal with disgruntled staff. What do all the goings on mean for advertisers?
A backlash over Facebook’s privacy practices has now triggered disagreement inside the company following a series of recent changes to its policies that have limited what users can keep private, as well a number of technical glitches that has exposed personal data.
The site’s privacy woes have rattled Facebook staff and put pressure on CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has argued for years that its users should be more open with their information.
He has at times over-ruled employees who argue Facebook should make more information private, by default, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Could the very public problems at Facebook derail advertisers?
The company is focused on ways to turn that vast amount of data into a multi-billion dollar ad-business - part of the reason for Facebook’s lose privacy rules is because Zuckerberg wants to sell user information in return for ad dollars.
But this week, new research from Sense Internet has revealed that Facebook is the most valuable social media platform for consumer brands.
The survey research suggests that for 80% of consumer brands, Facebook is their desired social media platform.
The research coincides with Facebook’s announcement that it was to relax restrictions on the storage of user data, which represents a huge leap forward in the flexibility that developers have to interact with its users. This will allow more complex and targeted marketing than has previously been possible.
Keen to exploit the new marketing-friendly announcement by the website, Sense Internet has seen an increased number of brands building bespoke Facebook applications.
Perhaps the advertising opportunities within Facebook are not all about ‘targeting‘ and user information after all - Fan pages still have a place. Read the rest of this entry »
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